RocketStar Tests Aerospike Rocket
Prototype in Florida (Source: SPACErePORT)
A team from New York-based RocketStar has conducted a test launch of a
scale model prototype rocket. The test rocket, featuring a 3-D printed
aerospike nozzle, launched Saturday morning from a field near the Cape
Canaveral Spaceport in Central Florida. The company plans to launch
full-sized rockets from Launch Complex 39C, recently developed by NASA
for small-class rockets. Click here for the video and
Twitter feed. (1/9)

Space Fungus! Mold Attacks Space
Station Plants (Source: Discovery)
Four zinnia plants on the International Space Station are sickly or
dead after mold was discovered in the Veggie experiment facility late
December, according to NASA. The problem was immediately traced back to
excessive water in the experiment, which was addressed. There are still
three healthy plants that appear unaffected by the issue.

ISS commander and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly reported the mold to
Mission Control Dec. 22 just as Veggie project manager Trent Smith was
trying to manage the water problem. In pictures, Smith saw water on the
plants a few days before. He told Discovery News he was trying to relay
a command from NASA’s station operations team to increase fan speed in
Veggie, but the mold developed before the command could be put through.
(1/7)

African Space Policy Adds New
Dimension for Aid (Source: SciDevNet)
With a billion people still in poverty, could rocket science be just
what development needs? In October 2015, African science and education
ministers adopted the continent’s first space policy. The accompanying
strategy is due to be ratified by heads of state at the African Union
summit later this month. The African space strategy supports building
technological capacity in states not nearly in the same income bracket
as India or China.

This means that development charities working in Africa will need to
argue that not only can development lead to aerospace capability, which
is how most people think anyway, but also that space technology can
make a contribution to development. This, in turn, suggests that
development agencies need to start rehearsing the benefits of space
technology for development outcomes.

Ultimately this means a new frontier of collaboration between science,
tech entrepreneurs and development practitioners — and NGOs may soon be
expected to offer project ideas that join up national space programs
with more traditional programmes. Take health and sanitation: NGOs
running programs on this can expect to be asked to demonstrate
space-related expertise, for instance in using satellite data to
predict water shortages and how to improve access to water. (1/7)

India and the Global Spring of Space
Commerce (Source: Asia Times)
In the garden city of Bangalore 9,246 miles from Cape Canaveral,
exulting at Falcon 9 success was 25-year old Sanjay Nekkanti,
co-founder of Dhruva Space, India’s first private company to make
satellites. “My immediate thought (on Falcon 9’s first stage landing)
was ‘Exciting times for space exploration,’ ” Nekkanti told Asia Times.
Click here.
(1/8)

'Time is Running Out' for Damaged
Philae Comet Lander (Source: NBC)
It may be the end of the line for Philae, the lander sent by the
Rosetta probe to survey the surface of a comet in 2014. What was going
to be the first controlled landing on a comet turned out to be a bumpy
ride that damaged its equipment and put it in a bad position for
keeping its solar-charged batteries topped up.

The lander successfully sent data back to Earth via the probe for about
two days, but since then only woke briefly in July 2015 — and the end
of January is the last time it could wake again. After that, the comet
— known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko — will have grown too cold for
Philae to function. (1/8)

“We could have saved the Air Force and the Congress a lot of
aggravation if we put a half of a billion dollars in a parking lot and
just burned it,” Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, chairman of the House
Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, said at yesterday’s
acquisition reform hearing. Stratforces, of course, oversees all
military satellites, so Mr. Roger’s opinion carries quite a bit of
weight. (1/8)

Vietnam Army Probes Mysterious 'Space
Balls' (Source: AFP)
Vietnam's military is investigating the appearance of three mysterious
metal balls — believed to be debris from space — which landed in the
country's remote north, a senior army official said Friday. Two metal
balls were discovered in northwestern Yen Bai province on January 2,
said army spokesman Lieutenant General Vo Van Tuan. Later a larger ball
weighing some 45 kilograms (100 pounds) landed in a maize field in
neighboring Tuyen Quang province, he said. (1/8)

NASA Confirms 100 New Alien Planets
(Source: National Geographic)
After being crippled by a mechanical malfunction, NASA’s planet-hunting
Kepler spacecraft is back in action and has found a slew of planets
orbiting other stars.

Called K2, the revamped mission has already found more than 100
confirmed planets, the University of Arizona’s Ian Crossfield announced
Tuesday at a conference of the American Astronomical Society. Some of
these are very different from what the spacecraft observed during its
original mission; many are in multi-planet systems and orbit stars that
are brighter and hotter than the stars in the original Kepler field.

It has found a system with three planets that are bigger than Earth,
spotted a planet in the Hyades star cluster—the nearest open star
cluster to Earth—and discovered a planet being ripped apart as it
orbits a white dwarf star. Scientists have also found 234 possible
planets that are awaiting confirmation. (1/8)